Fluttershy sat alone in relative silence on a chair in lobby of Ponyville's hospital, her patience strong and worry semi-controlled. She took a few glances towards the main desk, where a nurse was currently filing through a hoof-full of papers with an emotionless expression. So far, she hadn't heard anything yet on Strider except for the fact that he'd been stationed in a medical room and was in the process of being scanned.
Fluttershy could only hope that the doctors and nurses knew how to help his species, or at least give it their best. She knew some of the staff here (primarily due to Rainbow Dash's constant crash record) and knew that she could trust them with him. Still, she couldn't help but fear that something was gonna go wrong, leaving Strider in constant pain, or worse.
As the clock struck the hour, Nurse Redheart finally emerged from a set of double doors. She immediately spotted the butter yellow pegasus and trotted towards her.
"Miss Shy?" Nurse Redheart called out, halting before the chair she was sitting on.
"Is Strider gonna be ok Nurse Redheart?" Fluttershy asked, looking up into the white furred mares eyes.
Nurse Redheart looked unsure about something, but she tried to hide it. Sadly it was in vein due to Fluttershy's experiences with stubborn animals that had forced her to read expressions with as much detail as possible. It was a useful skill, but it also meant that she knew something was wrong if Redheart was trying to mask herself.
"We've done as much as we can, but Strider isn't like anything we've seen before. Most of our machines aren't able to work with his biology, and we've had to go old school with unicorn based spells. However, we were able to get some scans through. I could show you them if you want." Nurse Redheart stated.
"Um, if it isn't to much trouble." Fluttershy responded.
"Alright, follow me." Nurse Redheart instructed, before she began trotting towards a different set of double doors than the ones she'd entered through.
Fluttershy as followed the earth pony as they went deeper into the hospital, she couldn't help but stare at the vaste dull walls of the hallway. With such little decoration, it gave off the illusion of it stretching much longer than it truly was. After awhile of walking down these seemingly endless hallways, Nurse Redheart stopped at a simple wooden door no different from any other. With a quick push, the door opened inwards, exposing the room beyond its frame.
The room was no different from a normal hospital patient room, with the exception of an extended bed and the absence of windows due to it being near the middle of the building instead of along the ends. On the bed was Strider, his white armor stripped and set aside on a large table. His body was covered by a black body glove, but the more attention grabbing detail would be all the wires and pipes hooked up around his body. A sizable amount of clear tubes were hooked directly on Strider's head, a whitish red liquid flowing through them at a constant rate.
"W-What's going on? Why a-are so many machines h-hooked up to his head?" Fluttershy asked, her eyes widening in shock at the current state of her friend.
"Well, from what we've learned with the tools we have, something went wrong in Strider's brain, causing several nerve systems to lose certain signals. This included some vital organs which is why those machines are hooked up to him." Nurse Redheart exclaimed.
"What happened with his brain?" Fluttershy questioned.
"We did do a scan of it and due to it being almost identical to a typical pony brain aside from general size, we believe that a tumor of some sorts has erupted in his brain." Nurse Redheart stated.
"A tumor? H-How bad?"
"Worse than any normal tumor. This one had put so much pressure on his brain that several important functions had been completely cut off from the rest of the body. The only other example of a tumor this bad is a rare tumor that could numb or even block off the connection to magic from the horn in a unicorn. But even that didn't end up causing any vital organs to slow down to a life threatening level." Nurse Redheart said, trotting over to a desk.
Nurse Redheart picked up what seemed to be X-ray scans, before bringing them over to Fluttershy for her to see.
"This scan shows the tumor and what is happening to his brain." Nurse Redheart explained.
Fluttershy looked over the scans, instantly spotting the area where the tumor appeared to be. It didn't look good at all.
"Is there anything you can do to help him?" Fluttershy asked, her tone full of concern.
"The only thing we're able to do without the danger of damaging his brain is use those machines to keep his vital organs working. Other than that, all we can do is keep giving him the right medications and wait for his brain to heal on its own." Nurse Redheart proclaimed.
Fluttershy looked over at the unconscious Strider, then to the machines hooked up to him. How badly must Strider be feeling right now? It must be horrible...
Everything was quiet, so quiet that if someone took a single step a couple miles away from some else, they'd still hear it loud and clear. Strider didn't know what that meant, but he knew he'd need to figure it out. Slowly but surely, he opened up his eyelids a bit, exposing a massive white void around him. His eyes instantly shot the rest of the way open, completely caught off guard at the strange sight of nothingness.
"Where in the universe am I?" Strider questioned out loud, his voice stretching thin as it echoed through the vast empty void.
Strider got up from the 'floor' he'd been lying on and looked around, trying to spot anything to act as a landmark. Yet the place was completely empty with the exception of himself. Even then, his armor blended in very well with the area, only sticking out due to the exposed pieces of the body glove under it.
Something also didn't feel right, like he'd loaded a power pack into a blaster wrong but only slightly, just enough for it to not work but enough to not make it obvious. Still, he wasn't getting anywhere by standing there.
"Might as well start walking." Strider muttered to himself, simply choosing a random direction to go.
Fluttershy stared at the unmoving clone on the bed, watching as the machines did their desired jobs to their best abilities. A constant loud beeping noise from a vital monitor only made the situation feel even more drastic, like he was barely clinging onto life.
"How long to you think he'll need to recover?" Fluttershy asked.
"At least four weeks. His whole nervous system needs time to heal. I wouldn't be shocked if he needed to be here until fall." Nurse Redheart claimed.
"Oh, poor Strider. He was so close to finishing his ship as well." Fluttershy stated.
"Even if he gets out before fall, he's gonna need to take things slow until his mind can return to its normal pace." Nurse Redheart stated.
"I understand, thanks for all the help you're giving him." Fluttershy exclaimed.
"It's what we do at the Hospital." Nurse Redheart said.
Fluttershy nodded and decided she'd best get a move on. As much as she wanted to stay by her friends side, she had to tend to the wildlife back at her cottage and make sure they're alright. She did spare one last glance at the clone before leaving the room, but not more than a few seconds.
The trip back to her cottage was for the most part, uneventful. She'd spotted a flock of birds soaring overhead in the direction of Whitetail woods, and there were quite a few ponies out and about on picnic baskets with friends and enjoying the warm sunny day. She'd love to join them in having a nice picnic with her friends, but she knew it would be bittersweet with Strider's situation.
Speaking of her friends, she did spot Twilight and Spike sitting on a lone bench, a scroll being held in the young drakes hands along with a quill. Fluttershy's path already led her to her friend, so she simply continued forwards, managing to catch a bit of Twilight's last sentence as she approached.
"-ght be best for you to look into. Your faithful student, Twilight Sparkle." Twilight finished, Spikes rapid writing quickly following suit. "Oh, hey Fluttershy! Enjoying the wonderful weather?"
"Not as much as I did this morning." Fluttershy stated truthfully.
"What's wrong?" Spike questioned.
"Last night when I was tucking in some animals, I noticed Strider acting strangely outside my window. He seemed to be angry about something. So I went over to see if I could help, or figure out what was going on. But instead, he ended up falling to the ground. I rushed him to the hospital as quickly as I could with some help from Harry, and Nurse Redheart said that he has a tumor in his brain." Fluttershy explained.
"A tumor? How bad?" Twilight asked, her previous smile now long gone.
"Very bad, Strider's brain can't sent the right signals to keep some of his organs working. A lot of machines are hooked up to him right now and Nurse Redheart thinks he might be stuck the hospital until fall." Fluttershy said.
Twilight and Spike both exchanged glances, before returning their gazes back to the yellow pegasus.
"I hope he gets better, he was working so hard on that ship for so long." Spike stated.
"Yeah, I was actually checking over a report to Princess Celestia about Strider. If anypony knew about his species and how to help him get better, it would be her." Twilight exclaimed.
"That's a good idea! If Princess Celestia offers to help then Strider will be back on his feet in no time." Fluttershy said.
With those words in the air, Twilight quickly got to work on rewriting the report. It didn't take long before she was done and wrapped up the scroll in a red ribbon with a gold royal seal.
"Alright Spike, send the letter." Twilight instructed, hoofing the letter back into his claws.
Spike nodded and lifted the scroll into the air. With one quick puff of green fire, the scroll was turned into a sparkling grey cloud of dust. Immediately after all the paper was turned, the dust took off towards Canterlot, its message completely in-tact for the princesses to read.